Jack Chambers (Dublin West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy O'Callaghan and thank the witnesses for attending. To go back to a point made by Ms Deane, while there is a qualification on the crime statistics and trends, the trends are going in a worrying direction around the whole bail issue, repeat offences and recidivism. The witnesses have taken an approach to the legislation and said they think it has constitutional implications, and so on. Is there any type of legislative change they would welcome that would balance the concerns they are raising with what is a worrying trend, which no one can deny? There are real human stories where people are the victims of serious offences, whether it is murder, burglaries or otherwise. Again, we cannot generalise about the people behind those offences, and Deputy Daly mentioned there are difficult life stories behind why people end up doing certain things. However, there is also a cohort of psychopaths, probably a very small minority of people overall, who are slipping through. I recognise it is difficult in a legislative piece to balance all of those considerations. Nonetheless, there are some who continue to reoffend and who are slipping through all the time.

Given the trends and the legislation, as experts on penal reform, can the witnesses suggest how we could move to try to clarify the legislative framework in order to balance the constitutional considerations and also the aspirations we have around penal reform? I recognise such aspirations are important, in particular those around addiction and the complexity of incarceration.

However, a whole-of-government approach is important, too. Something needs to happen. Communities are faced with increased fear and anger when they see people committing the same offence over and over and they hear from the gardaí investigating the burglary that they know who it was and they are in this cycle. How would the witnesses see this in terms of policy and legislative changes? Could there be amendments that might balance their considerations or does it rest completely outside the remit of legislative change?